Combined effect of drug and drive on the consolidation process

Rats of the Maudsley strains were trained in the Hebb-William's maze under three levels of food deprivation, i.e. 22, 25, and 7 h (drives) for 10 consecutive days. Immediately after each daily trial the experimental animals of all three drives were injected with a 1.0 mg/kg dose of picrotoxin, and the animals of the control groups were administered distilled water. Picrotoxin increased the efficiency of learning at all levels of drive, and higher drive level resulted in greater performance. The Reactive strain performed better in the maze learning than the Non-Reactive.This work was carried out at the Institute of Psychiatry, London S.E. 5.